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[toshimarise]

Silly n00b here, just wanted to say that as a new potential player, I came this forum and created an account for the sole purpose of pleading for a new graphical interface.  Your votes survey is an excellent tool and I have spent each of my votes on an interface improvement suggestions. 

I don't know if this thread is the appropriate venue for airing my thesis but I'm gonna give it a shot and you're obviously free to move the post if it should go elsewhere.

Let me begin by saying I want to like it!  DF was recommended to me from three directions - an obsessed friend and a former roommate who've been longtime fans, and then today's mention on Penny Arcade pushed me over the edge to check it out.  There are a lot of people with a deep investment in the game itself and the community around it.   But I think that very investment blinds you to the actual main problem with the game.

I don't care about any of the other suggestions in your survey.  Right now, for me, the game is completely unplayable because I can't tell WTF is going on.  It doesn't matter to me whether you can castrate cats or build staircases out of rope because I can't figure out how to tell if I own any cats or how to build staircases.  (Well, okay, NOW I do, but I had to come online to look up *how to access the menu*.)  It can't possibly be news to you that the interface is completely opaque and the learning curve is a 90 degree vertical cliff for the first 2-3 hours.

 After additional research, I understand there are ways to install some extra stuff and mess with the .init settings to reduce the awfulness.  But seriously?  I looked at today's dev notes and saw some progress being made on the *beard status* front.  I can't tell you how excited I was when I came to the forums and saw the 3Dwarf utility - at first I mistook it for a mod or something that could be used while playing the game.  Insofar as anyone cares, my votes are completely, 100%, unequivocally for graphical improvement NOW.

It's your sandbox, guys, and it looks like a great game you've got in there... but you've got a mighty mass of barbed wire around you and I can't seem get the hang of the army crawl.  Could you open up a door for me?

[zagibu]

DF already has quite the fanbase, so it's a tough decision on what to work. You basically have the option to add more content, which will of course satisfy the fanbase, but doesn't help to get new players, or you could make it more accessible (which is a BIG effort, BTW). I like Toady's approach, because, obviously, I'm already a fan and have no problems with the interface or the graphics.
There's only so much a one-man development team can do.

[G-Flex]

After additional research, I understand there are ways to install some extra stuff and mess with the .init settings to reduce the awfulness.  But seriously?  I looked at today's dev notes and saw some progress being made on the *beard status* front.

I understand the gist of your post, but right here... well, if you're going to suggest something, you probably shouldn't trivialize what the guy's working on now.

Yeah, he's working on beards, but only as part of an extremely complicated new body and descriptive system for creatures. It's pretty important/complex stuff, and is going to make a lot of difference to the game. It's not just pointless cosmetics.

[toshimarise]

You are correct, the beard dev comment was out of line and did not help my argument.  After a couple of frustrating hours just trying to fight my way into the meat of the game, I came and posted here without my usual half-hour "Don't-Make-An-Ass-Of-Yourself Cool-Down Period"(TM).  I apologize.

As Zagibu said, the tension is between adding new content and making the existing game more accessible.  Obviously here, in the forum dedicated to existing fans, the numbers are skewed towards content and bug-fixing.  And it seems that Toady has made it clear that his priorities lie there too - which makes sense since I understand that (part of?) his income is derived from the hardcore existing fans who demand new content.

I'm sure that my argument is not new.  I simply wanted to put it out there, sort of as a reminder in this thread devoted to asking the community what it wants.  There are interested people who might have loved the game but will never make it past the first menu screen, because they're not interested enough to spend the required hours being bored and frustrated.  And most of these people will never voice their opinion to the community.  People who play the game long enough to become part of the community have come to terms with the interface, or even wear their mastery of it as a badge of honor.  I just wonder how many potential fans you're losing?

I really am sorry that my post last night devolved into sarcasm.  I hope that you will still consider my point.

[Draco18s]

It can't possibly be news to you that the interface is completely opaque and the learning curve is a 90 degree vertical cliff for the first 2-3 hours.

Um.  This is a steep learning curve:



People thing that's a "shallow learning curve" because it has a shallow slope and is easy to walk up, which is wrong.  Learning curves are a function of effort that grants understanding.

[G-Flex]

At any rate, I totally get what you mean about the interface.

The thing is that, well, if you look at the development notes, Toady has a LOT of content planned for the game, and the interface for it is just lower-priority than a lot of that, in his opinion (from what I've read).

The problem is that finalizing any sort of decent interface for the game can be risky, in my opinion, if there's so much content left to be done. After all, it's hard to design an interface if you don't know half of what you're designing it for, and it would take a lot of extra effort if he had to gut the whole thing again later.

[Footkerchief]

For anyone who didn't know, Toady split this topic off from the ESV thread, so don't give this guy shit for posting a graphics/interface thread.

As Zagibu said, the tension is between adding new content and making the existing game more accessible.  Obviously here, in the forum dedicated to existing fans, the numbers are skewed towards content and bug-fixing.  And it seems that Toady has made it clear that his priorities lie there too - which makes sense since I understand that (part of?) his income is derived from the hardcore existing fans who demand new content.

There are more people here that would take your side (in some kind of mutually exclusive graphics vs. content poll) than you might expect, although yeah, this forum would certainly be more hardcore than the playerbase at large.  However, Toady's priorities aren't mutually exclusive like that.  For one thing, the interface gets incremental upgrades when he guts existing game systems or adds new ones.  He's also been sprinkling in a few (a precious few) direct graphics/interface upgrades, like the mass dump designations, mass construction, and the expandable grid.  Hopefully full tile support isn't too far off either.

If you want to know more about any of those points, or what Toady's said in the past about the Presentation Arc (improvements to graphics and interface), or why Toady's priorities fall the way they do, or anything of that kind, I can dig up some more quotes etc. that might illuminate things.

[zagibu]

After all, it's hard to design an interface if you don't know half of what you're designing it for, and it would take a lot of extra effort if he had to gut the whole thing again later.

It's not necessary to defend DF's UI. It is frustratingly unintuitive and difficult to learn. And this is not because of what you said, but because it has evolved over time and wasn't properly designed in the first place. It works, though, and Toady has already improved many aspects of it (i still remember designating every single dug out stone to be trashed).
Ideally, the UI would be  separated from the rest of the code, and the underlying interfaces published. This would allow third party developers to create own interfaces, and would also free Toady of "uninteresting" tasks.

[Foa]

There is a reason why it is called a rouge-like game.

If you want new graphics, go to DF Wiki, and obtain a graphics pack, almost everyone use them.

[winner]

You are right. The user interface is the biggest impediment to new players [to learn it I used spring break holed up in my room with just a game and the wiki. The amusing thing about me saying this is that I started playing because I saw a picture of the acii grass and saw that it was beautiful.

I can't say anything that someone else isn't going to say better so I'll just agree and say "you are unrevokably right."

[Gertack]

If you want the default pretty:

Mike Mayday's pack

If you'd like something completely different:

Lifevis


I'm fine with the Mayday pack personally, although I use Dwarf Manager all the time too because job management is a hassle otherwise.

[Granite26]

The problem is that finalizing any sort of decent interface for the game can be risky, in my opinion, if there's so much content left to be done. After all, it's hard to design an interface if you don't know half of what you're designing it for, and it would take a lot of extra effort if he had to gut the whole thing again later.

Pretty much this.

[zagibu]

The problem is that finalizing any sort of decent interface for the game can be risky, in my opinion, if there's so much content left to be done. After all, it's hard to design an interface if you don't know half of what you're designing it for, and it would take a lot of extra effort if he had to gut the whole thing again later.

Pretty much this.

No.

[Footkerchief]

No.

Since you're harping on it as if it's a big deal, I still can't see any contradiction here:

After all, it's hard to design an interface if you don't know half of what you're designing it for, and it would take a lot of extra effort if he had to gut the whole thing again later.

It's not necessary to defend DF's UI. It is frustratingly unintuitive and difficult to learn. And this is not because of what you said, but because it has evolved over time and wasn't properly designed in the first place. It works, though, and Toady has already improved many aspects of it (i still remember designating every single dug out stone to be trashed).

[zagibu]

Yeah, I'm confused myself . No, what I actually mean is that yes, DF's interface needs improvement, but I actually don't want Toady to work on it too much, because the current interface works, once you have spent some time with the game. And that I think the best way the whole problem could be solved would be to rearrange the code so that UI code is separate and communicates with the rest of the game via controllers. This would allow for third party devs from the community to do the tedious and uninteresting work of designing a proper interface.